Category: Web Development

This chapter puts all the concepts of form validation and extraction of HTML form data into PHP code. The complete form handling code given below has three sections: A PHP code section in the beginning that looks for any validation errors when the form is submitted, the HTML form with various elements such as text…

PHP provides two alternatives for validating the form data items which are strings but are expected to be a representation of Email ID or a URL. One way to check the form element contains email/URL is with the use of RegEx (regular expressions), and the other, more convenient approach is to use filter_var() function. Let us…

The term “Form Validation” refers to the process of ascertaining if the data entered by the user in various form elements is acceptable for further processing. Validation of data before its subsequent processing avoids possible exceptions and runtime errors. Types of Form Validation Validation can be done both on the client-side and on the server-side.…

HTML Forms play an important role in PHP web applications. Although a webpage composed purely with HTML is a static webpage, the HTML form component is an important feature that helps in bringing interactivity and rendering dynamic content. PHP’s form handling functionality can validate data collected from the user, before processing. What is Form Handling ?…

PHP is a server-side scripting language that is used to create dynamic webpages. It is one of the most popular programming languages for web development. This chapter aims to let you get familiarized with certain important concepts of web application development using PHP. A web-based application is a collection of webpages. A webpage is mainly…

Message flashing in a PHP web application refers to the technique that makes certain messages popup on the browser window for the user to receive applications feedback. To be able to give the user a meaningful feedback to his interactions is an important design principle, that gives a better user experience. In a PHP web application,…

In PHP, PRG stands for “Post/Redirect/Get”. It is a commonly used technique that is designed to prevent the resubmission of a form after it’s been submitted. You can easily implement this technique in PHP to avoid duplicate form submissions. Usually a HTML form sends data to the server with the POST method. The server script…

In PHP, it is important to ensure that the input data is sanitized properly by removed any undesired characters before it is processed by the server side code. Usually, the users input their data to a PHP web application through a HTML form. If the form data consists of any undesired characters, it may prove…

The provision of sending emails is one the commonly required features of a typical PHP powered web application. You would like to send emails containing notifications, updates and other communications to your registered users, through your PHP application itself, instead of a different mail service. You can add this capability to your PHP application by…

From PHP version 7 onwards, the session_start() function accepts an array of options to override the session configuration directives set in “php.ini”. The [session] session in “php.ini” defines the default values of various options. The options, if provided, are in the form of an associative array of options that will override the currently set session configuration directives.…